New CNN poll suggests a Bernie-Biden race for the Democratic nomination

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/CNN)

published 22 January 2020

A CNN-SSRS poll released Wednesday morning found a new national frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), though his lead over former Vice President Joe Biden is within the poll's margin of error, "meaning there is no clear leader in this poll," CNN says. Sanders, with 27 percent support among registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning, and Biden, polling at 24 percent, are now in a category of their own, though, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has fallen to a distant third at 14 percent.

"For the first time in the entirety of this campaign, in CNN's national polling, Joe Biden doesn't have the lead position all to himself," CNN political director David Chalian said on Wednesday's New Day. Sanders jumped 7 percentage points since December by eating into Biden's support among nonwhite voters and Warren's support among liberal Democrats.

The most important quality Democratic voters said they valued was electability, and Biden still held a commanding lead among candidates seen as the most likely to defeat President Trump, but Sanders leads in voter enthusiasm, CNN reports. Nine percent of men and 20 percent of women said they didn't think a woman can win the presidency.

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In head-to-head polling against Trump, all six leading Democrats beat Trump nationally, with only Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-Minn.) lead falling within the margin of error, but the candidates were all essentially tied with Trump in the 15 battleground states CNN identified. Trump's approval rating in the poll was 43 percent.

SSRS conducted the poll Jan. 16-19 among 1,156 adults, and the full sample has a margin of sampling error of ±3.4 percentage points. For the sample of 500 Democrats, the margin of error was ±5.3 percentage points.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.